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identity for themselves than the one followers were forcing and Brigid Carroll for their comments on preliminary versions of
upon them. Through this renewed identity, leaders might try this article. The author is, finally, sincerely grateful as well to Susan
to redirect the attention to something different than their par- Adams for her developmental editing through the reviewing pro-
adoxical position, something that this time they can better cess, and to the anonymous reviewers for their perceptiveness and
handle. Thus, in the systemic efforts of followers demanding suggestions.
leaders to be in certain ways, and leaders realizing they can-
not, leaders’ fantasies could be instrumental if/when allow- Declaration of Conflicting Interests
ing for a reconstruction or renegotiation of the identity and The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
role that a leader must play. More importantly, these leaders’ to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
fantasies, by being of the magical realist type, could be par-
ticularly instrumental, as their disguising as unavoidable Funding
natural matter-of-fact could be more persuasive to convince The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
followers to give up the dream of the heroic leader. ship, and/or publication of this article.
The insights developed by exploring the empirical con-
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